Mission impossible for the Democrats?

March 20, 2011|By John McCarron

Democrats are being lured into a battle they cannot win.

In states across the Midwest, and in recession-racked places from Florida to California, the party of the little guy, the wage slave, the hardworking have-not, is lining up to defend the enviable wages and benefits of public-sector employees.

Everywhere this battle is fought we Dems are going to lose.

Why?

Because Democrats are letting their opponents choose the field of battle. Worse, the Dems are being maneuvered into playing defense in a war for public sympathy that inevitably favors the offense.

Years from now, analysts will look back and marvel at how today's Republicans — the party of bankers, hedge fund managers and stateless corporations — managed so quickly to sidestep blame for the recent economic collapse and instead turn public anger toward garbage collectors and school superintendents.

As a liberal Democrat, this doesn't make me mad so much as jealous.

Where is our Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor who cleverly slipped anti-union poison pills into an otherwise reasonable proposal for government workers there to accept modest cuts in wages and benefits? That ploy was sheer genius.

By triggering a two-week tantrum of sit-ins by unionists, not to mention strategic bug-outs by Democratic legislators, Walker turned the Capitol in Madison into a made-for-TV GOP comic book. Ask yourself: Which side might a typically underinformed voter favor? The crisp, young governor with his "budget repair bill"? Or the loud band of blue-jeaned protesters and union demonstrators, the latter apparently taking a few days off to wave glossy signs issued by union higher-ups?

Mind you, I'm not discussing merits here, just tactics.

On the merits, a credible case can be made that the average wage of public employees is no more generous than that paid in the private sector. It gets complicated when you adjust for job descriptions, education requirements and such. At the low end, such as janitors and sanitation workers, public employees do make more; at the high end, such as senior managers and department heads, the private sector pays more … often a whole lot more.

Benefits are another story. Most salaried workers in the private sector, where defined-contribution 401(k) plans are the norm, can only dream of the defined benefits common in the public sector. And most salaried private-sector workers — which is to say most workers — can only dream of benefits that vest in as little as 10 years, or full vesting at age 50, or cash credit for untaken sick or vacation days or minimal contribution to health insurance premiums, even in retirement.

Then there's the Republicans' not-so-secret weapon in this fight: the persuasive power of the anomalous example. It's one thing for union defenders to point out, say, that the average Illinois public employee pension is $17,112 a year. It's a far more powerful thing for Republicans to produce example after example of multipension politicos who collect that much per month. It's no contest. Your outrageous example beats my wonky mean, median and mode every time.

But why are Democrats even playing this game?

Public budgets aren't in distress because of out-of-whack pay scales or overly generous benefit packages — though both need to be reviewed and revised. They're in distress, primarily, because of a vicious economic downturn — and loss of tax revenue — that was not, repeat not, caused by school teachers or garbage men. They're in trouble, moreover, because of federal tax cuts and loopholes that favor the rich; because of two major wars being fought with borrowed money; and because of runaway government health care spending that benefits comfortable "providers" every bit as much as sick patients.

This is the strategic high ground that a more capable Democratic general would have seized … and from which the left's rhetorical forces could attack. But no.

The vibe from the White House is that we ought not blame Wall Street bankers, despite the damage done, lest we slow the recovery and be accused of partisan populism. Better to give massive mortgage fraud a pass and instead busy the FBI and Justice Department on some arcane insider trading scam.

So hit those picket lines, fellow Democrats, and wave your union-made signs. Me? I'll sit this one out. You're not wrong to defend union bennies, just naive. Get back to me when the fight shifts to someplace we can win.